‘He’s talking ‘morally” – Australia players respond to Joe Root’s ‘this team over Australia’ comment
Several Australian players have responded on social media to comments made by Joe Root today (November 3)t, taking a dig at the England batter ahead of the big clash between the two sides at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad tomorrow (November 4).
Speaking ahead of the England vs Australia encounter in Ahmedabad, Root told BBC Sport that he would still pick England’s side over Australia’s despite being at the extreme bottom of the table more than two-thirds of the way into the World Cup.
“Man for man, I’d have this team every day over the Australians,” said Root. He added that England have massively underperformed at the 2023 World Cup and that given their quality they should have been somewhere around the top of the table.
“We might not have played as well as we can do but we know when we play our best stuff the best teams struggle to compete with us. I look at this team and it’s more than capable of achieving way more than it has done throughout this tournament. With the quality of players we have, we should be sat right at the top of this (table). We all know that and we’re all very frustrated that isn’t the case,” said Root.
Root’s comments were posted on Instagram by Fox Cricket, under which a couple of Australian players, including Marnus Labuschagne and Usman Khawaja commented.
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The post highlighted Root’s “I’d have this team every day over the Australians” comment, to which Labuschagne responded with a laughing emoji, David Warner chipped in as well, quite literally doubling down on Labuschagne’s comment with a “double..” followed by two laughing emojis.
Khawaja had a sarcastic response: “He’s talking ‘morally’…”, referencing the battle for the moral high ground during the tightly fought Ashes series earlier this year in England which ended in a 2-2 draw.
Australia are currently third on the points table with eight points, having a six point lead over England.
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